


Medical Curiosity

by Nitrobot



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Holoform(s), Masturbation, Other, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:02:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1857327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>June has always had some curiosity in how her son's extraterrestrial friends function. Ratchet accidentally gives her some insight into a certain aspect of their biology: reproduction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThePraxianWeasleyGeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePraxianWeasleyGeek/gifts).



Like all mothers, June Darby had some difficulty fitting in with her child’s new friends. 

Unlike most mothers though, these friends were gigantic robots from an alien planet, so the difficulty bumped up a notch.  
But she surprised herself at how easily she had accepted it- when Jack came home late she learned not to be confused when he explained himself with “out with the ‘Bots”, and she even waved at the motorcycle that came to pick him up every morning for school (of course she didn’t know if they could even see in their alt modes, but she figured she might as well make the effort).  
There was one bot in particular that June found herself most drawn towards though- Ratchet. 

At first it was his choice in an ambulance alt mode, so unlike the vehicles made for speed or muscle that his companions choose, that intrigued her. When she was first being introduced to them all Optimus had explained that Ratchet was a field medic, the closest the Autobots had to a doctor and scientist on site, and June couldn’t help but ask more about the grumpy old bot. Rather than having parents he was ‘born’ from the Well of All Sparks on Cybertron, a short while before Optimus was, but his T-Cog had yet to fully develop so he was placed into the ‘Indefinite’ caste of bots yet to receive their official jobs (another thing June had discovered she understood with a surprising ease, the structure of Cybertron’s working classes). When his alt mode came through it was one of a Cybertronian emergency vehicle, so he was placed into the Medicinal caste. That meant he’d been a medic near enough his entire life. Even as someone who knew from a young age that she wanted to help people, June had some trouble imagining what that must have been like, especially with Cybertronian lives spanning thousands of years rather than mere human decades. 

Ratchet was absent from his usual place at the med-bay today, so June was left to idly watch the children at the couch with a video game, before glancing over to Optimus at his work station. She approached him on one of the metal walkways made for assisting in human-bot communication and squinted at the strange glyphs all over his screen, and the tablets strewn around his desk. 

“Busy day, Optimus?”

“Always busy, Miss Darby,” Optimus replied, not turning away from his console as his digits kept tapping on the keyboard. “I am still attempting to decode much of the Iacon database, and I must perform weapon maintenance shortly. Furthermore, Ratchet has requested medical data to be transferred to a datapad for his study, and I’ve yet to deliver it to him-“

“I can take it for you,” she offered, grateful for a chance to see the old bot at least once today. Optimus paused his work and looked down in concern. 

“Are you sure, Miss Darby? Datapads are rather large in human hands-“

“If I could handle hauling Jack around as a toddler, I’m sure I’ll be fine with whatever it is Ratchet needs.” There was an indignant cry of “What’s that supposed to mean?!” from the couch as Optimus reached over his desk and passed down a large tablet-like object to her. It _was_ heavy, twice the size of her torso, but she was determined not to struggle with it while Optimus could see (she swore the big bot worried too much, and the last thing he needed was to fret about a human).

Luckily for June, Ratchet’s own quarters were just through the med-bay, so she didn’t have far to walk. Giant tables and trays of mysterious equipment loomed over her as she made for the entrance to the medic’s room. She tried knocking part of the massive door, but there was no reply. Trying again, harder this time, there was still only silence apart from the fading echoes of her knocks. Sighing wearily, she set the datapad down and leaned her back against the door, and almost fell backwards when she felt the door inching open from her weight against it. She recovered and used her foot to prod the door open further, and slipped inside to place the datapad somewhere for Ratchet to receive later. 

As it happened, the medic _was_ inside, but apart from his paintjob he might have looked like an entirely different bot. His usually sour frown was propped open, and his denta chewed on his bottom lip with his optics squeezed closed. June was completely confused as to why- until her eyes snapped down to where his hand was. 

Her gasp instantly gave her away, but she turned around quickly enough to avoid Ratchet’s look of horror. 

“M-Miss Darby!” She heard a frantic shuffle and a click behind her, no doubt the medic putting away his ... well, June wasn’t sure what to call it, but it forced a ferocious blush on her face all the same. 

“It’s a usual courtesy to _knock_ before entering a bot’s quarters...” His vocaliser was peppered with static and each word wavered in pitch from his flooding embarrassment. 

“I _did_ knock, but you didn’t... well, obviously, you didn’t hear...“ She had to take a deep breath before going on. “Optimus wanted me to deliver a datapad to you.” June’s words came out in a rush as she hesitantly turned back around, making sure Ratchet had suitably covered himself. He still had a hand positioned over his codpiece, but at least it was in an attempt to cover it this time. 

“Ah, yes, I remember...you can leave it on one of the trays.” Fortunately there was one in arms reach, so June didn’t have to risk showing her shakes as she placed it down. 

“Sorry for... interrupting you, Ratchet.” She rubbed at her arm and looked everywhere that wasn’t orange metal, and the medic coughed to clear the remaining mortification from his systems. 

“Not at all, June, it was... nothing important.”

“I see...” This was her chance to walk very quickly away before her face ended up permanently red, but a strange sense of curiosity kept her anchored to the floor. “I, uh... I never knew your species... did _that_.”

“Yes, well, um... I am an adult Cybertronian, the oldest in the base, even.” June saw a large hand clenching and unclenching in discomfort at the corner of her eye. ”Like all, I have... needs to take care of.” That gave her some unfortunate thoughts about a certain teenage boy just a few rooms away, but she doubted even those couldn’t have shocked her more than walking in on this stoic mech reduced to a stuttering mechanical meltdown.

“So... all Cybertronians can...“ 

Ratchet coughed again as if his spark was trying to climb up his throat. “I cannot speak for the other mechs, but...well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Arcee is the only femme in the base, so I must take matters in my... own hands, so to speak.”  
 _‘That’s one way to put it...’_ “Well, I’ll... just be going, then.”

“Pass on my thanks to Optimus for... th-the datapad.” June threw a nod back before finally making her retreat, collapsing against a wall and holding a hand to her mouth. A mixture of laughter and whimpering exploded into her palm. By the time they subsided into small giggles she thought she heard a grunt echoing through the door behind her, and she hurried away so Ratchet couldn’t hear her laughing even louder (mechs were even more alike to human men than she thought, it seemed. They always had to finish what they started). 

June didn’t know what was more disturbing about the whole thing; knowing how alike Cybertronians were to humans, or the unmistakable bloom of heat she felt that _wasn’t_ on her face when she saw him exposed.  
Then again, when she considered Jack’s father, she guessed falling for a giant robot wasn’t too bad.


	2. Chapter 2

Ratchet had insisted on forgetting the ‘datapad incident’ had even happened and made measures to avoid her altogether during the day if he could. But June’s persistence in getting his attention eventually paid off, and once she promised to keep his secret between them both the tension in the medic’s joints alleviated considerably. He even managed to smile at her when she came to pick up Jack, and her son barely noticed the changed aura between human and mech. Arcee on the other hand raised an eyeridge at Ratchet’s cordiality, but said nothing to her partner about it. 

Then one evening Jack stayed longer than usual, June found herself with Ratchet in the medbay, and one thing led to another with her lips somehow finding themselves on his faceplate. The metal was cold, but she felt it grow warm just before she pulled away. The mech’s optics blinked rapidly and stared at her, as if she’d just doused him with water. 

“...Do Cybertronians do that?” she asked, brushing a strand of hair nervously from her face. Ratchet’s vocaliser made sounds similar to an old computer trying to start up.

“O-Occasionally...” He coughed, or whatever the Cybertronian equivalent was. “Usually sires and carriers to their offspring and... sparkmates showing affection...”

“Have you ever had one? A sparkmate?” June’s question was intended to be something to dispel the awkwardness settling over the medbay, but it only managed to heighten its presence. Ratchet’s cables tensed and his jaw locked, optics looking away.

“Once.” He no longer stuttered, but his voice sounded like glass shards scraping together; thick with grief. “But she... I lost her during the war.”

June’s mouth opened slightly as she realised her mistake. She hadn’t considered the war the Autobots had been trapped in for centuries; fighting and dying in long before she was even born. 

“I lost mine as well.”

“How so?” Ratchet asked with curiosity taking some of the edge from his anguish. June deliberated on that, trying to think of a way to explain it. She didn’t know if Cybertronians ever ‘fell out’ of love. 

“...Our sparks weren’t meant for each other.” He nodded once in understanding, and it wasn’t until Jack pointed it out when he was ready to leave that June noticed one of his digits lightly resting on her hand. It was a minor gesture compared to the steel kiss they shared earlier, but it left her skin tingling long after she went home. 

Of course, being intimate with a giant robot had as many problems as potential benefits, as June soon discovered. Apart from the obvious issue of Ratchet’s size dwarfing her, his metal frame was often too cold to touch, and he was so cautious of hurting her that he hardly moved. 

She was about to suggest just forgoing intimacy altogether when Ratchet muttered something quietly from his vocaliser. Even without Cybertronian audios though, June caught onto it. 

“A holoform?” She looked up at him curiously, still idly running her hand over the top of his chest plating. He seemed even tenser than usual as he coughed, averting his optics from her eyes.

“I can generate a... projection of semi-solid holomatter, to better blend in to alien environments. As such, my form is... programmed to that of a human.”

“You can... make yourself into a human?” June was torn between fascination and anticipation; wanting to know how it worked but at the same time wanting him to get on with showing it.

“Only a mere _projection_ of one, but... essentially, yes.”

“And you never said so until now?”

Ratchet’s optics flicked aside when he heard the accusation in her voice, the thought that he didn’t trust her. “Well, to generate the holoform my primary body would remain in a pseudostasis. I would only be partially aware of my surroundings while occupying the holoform. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to make myself so vulnerable-” The guilt in his voice was too much for June to bear any longer, and she quickly silenced him with a kiss on his bottom lipplate.

“I’d love to see it,” she admitted with a hand on the side of his faceplate. “But only if you’re comfortable showing me.”

The mech nodded with a small smile, leaning in slightly to her touch. “I am now. I know I am.” Without another word he pressed a shaking digit into something on his side plating, only now turning his optics upwards as a blue electric stream shot forward from them. June flinched away, blinking in awe as pixels and blueprints shimmered in the air. The darkness of the medbay amplified the cyan spotlight that enveloped the slowly building, but unmistakably human, shape within it. She glanced back to Ratchet himself, and it was as if he was frozen. His armour had even gone colder beneath her. When she looked back to the digital stream, the projection was complete. 

Ratchet’s holoform was of an older man, at least twenty years her senior, of graying red hair and a rough face lined with age and worry. Even now he kept his optics- his eyes pointed downwards behind his glasses, and a hand rubbed at the back of his head.  
“Ratchet?” June slowly approached him, in complete disbelief. The man/holograph/thing nodded, now nervously rubbing at his elbow. 

“I can... change it if you don’t like how it looks.” Somehow his voice came from the hologram’s mumbling mouth, but June couldn’t hear any feedback or echo that would come from a speaker. It was as if he was standing and speaking before her, and it was incredible. 

He wasn’t perhaps her first choice for what a partner might look like, but it suited him. And he was handsome, even with his pixellated wrinkles and the age bleeding through his hairline. She approached him with a sincere smile, gently placing her hand against his cheek again. “You look lovely, Ratch. I mean it.”

For the first time he let his eyes meet hers; small blue moons almost as bright as his robot form’s optics and lighting even more when he saw June’s approval of his form. His fingers wrung themselves together with the last of his anxiety, as if they were on rusty hinges, and his jaw wavered as he tried to think of what else to say to her. Being so close to her height now was so surreal that whatever passed for his holoform’s processor was lagging fiercely, and all he could do was gaze at her alien beauty; the wet wide optics and soft faceplate and softer, strange protoform layer that covered it. The coal filaments from her head- hair, was it called?- was like flower-scented silk between his fingers as she kissed him, real lips pressing into synthetic and making Ratchet believe that he actually was human, that he was fully here holding his partner close to his spark and-

His eyes burned behind projected lids and shot open as an influx of painful memories from Cybertron flooded him, his holoform flickering. June stumbled as the solid chest beneath her suddenly disappeared, and it was only when Ratchet pulled himself together a klick later that she was saved from falling on the floor. 

“Are you alright?” Ratchet asked, supporting her with an arm around her waist. She shook her head to move the hair blocking her vision away. 

“I should be asking _you_ that, Ratchet,” June said with a hint of a laugh, but it did little to budge the concern in his eyes. “What happened?”

Ratchet was back to looking away from her all over again. “I remembered something. The sparkmate I lost... you reminded me of her. The shock destabilised my system processes and made my holoform glitch.” There was a thickness in his voice that on any human would have indicated sorrow, but the light in his eyes when they finally looked at June again contradicted that. “I’m fine, though. I’m more than fine, I... I have you.” He was the one to kiss her this time, gently tilting her head up and letting his tongue find hers. June’s arms were around his neck and doing everything to pull him deeper into her mouth, overcome with a need to deal with, once and for all, all the frustration and loneliness that had echoed in the back of her life for so many years.

At some point, she noticed a part of his holoform that was significantly more solid than the rest. From the red spreading across Ratchet’s already-flushed face, he was fully aware of it too.

“You know... “A finger idly ran down his chest over the buttons of his shirt as June spoke. “Jack is staying with a friend tonight. I’ll be all alone in my house, unless...”

“Unless you have someone to take you home?” Even with his fierce blush, the slyness on Ratchet’s face was obvious. June nodded just before the human holding her blinked out of existence and, klicks later, giant digits gently lifted her up and carried her from the med-bay.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited (?) last chapter to my most kudos-ed TF fic. And I do mean last chapter this time, so don't be anxious for anything else after this. I love June/Ratch as much as the next degenerate, but there's really only so much I can do here.

At first Jack didn't think much of the ambulance parked outside his house. That was before it had been by the road for the past three nights, and before he realised the ambulances from his Mom's hospital didn't come in with an orange trim.

He went right to the point over breakfast on the fourth morning, before June's head could clear of sleep dampness. "So what's Ratchet doing outside?"

Even muffled by a mouthful of cereal, his question managed to make June splutter her coffee right back into her mug. "He's... he's been helping me with some hospital work," she hastily supplied, slipping and stirring more milk into her cup; the clatter of her spoon against the porcelain masking her teeth starting to grind together. "Y'know... alien technology," she said with a phony laugh and an idle sleepy motion of her hand. "Can't understand it, but might as well make the most of it while it's there."

Jack narrowed his eyes above the rim of his orange juice while June took another essential gulp of coffee. "Riiight. Cause, he's not answering when I try and talk to him out there, and not cussing me out when I kick his door." Irritation at that briefly flashed on June's face, almost confirming the soft spot he'd always suspected. "Which means... he's not in there. Somehow." Jack's own night owl brain was struggling to get its gears moving, clogged with lethargy and yawns. He knew what he was trying to say though; with Ratchet's body taking up the neighbour's spot, the lights were on but no one was home. 

Whether or not June understood him, she'd already decided to come clean after another healthy dose of caffeine. "Well... I guess you could say that me and Ratchet are... dating?"

Now Jack had full right to spit his breakfast out in a lump of half chewed cornflakes and milk.

"I... wasn't sure how to tell you," June went on as Jack tried to convince himself he was still asleep and stuck in some kind of surreal nightmare. "It's weird, I know. Really, really weird. But..." She bit her lip, staring into her milky coffee. "Well, it's not much different than you and Arcee."

Anything left of Jack's appetite vanished at that moment, slipping through his look of disgust. "Uh, okay, first of all; gross. Second, driving her is in a whole other ballpark from dating."

"Okay, okay, I just..." June sighed, brushing a strand of hair out her eyes like Ratchet's holoform liked to do. "Well, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. And if you really want me to... I'll call it off with him."

Jack rubbed his eyes as his eyebrows raised over them, forcing himself to wipe away the ragged edges of sleep. With his vision clearer, he saw an unmistakable smile in his mother's coffee-washed mouth, different from all the ones she'd plastered on for him in the past. It was genuine, rooted deep in her face as her eyes glazed over. She was thinking about Ratchet, he knew. An alien robot made his Mom happier than anything else on Earth, at least since his father left. "I-uh..." Jack cleared his throat of the growing awkwardness. "Well, it's... like you said, Mom, it's weird. But I guess if you like a cranky old robot... I can't really stop you?" He stirred his cereal absently, looking everywhere that wasn't his mother and mumbling; "As long as I don't have to call him 'Dad'..."

June flicked her cloudy gaze over to her son, an eyebrow of her own quirked in question. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Mom. If he makes you happy, then... you don't have to stop just cause of me. I guess it'd make Ratchet a little less cranky, at least."

Somehow her smile beamed brighter, all morning grogginess lost to the air. She finished her drink and stood up, taking Jack's abandoned cereal to the sink. "Come on, I'll take you to school."

They were halfway to the garage before Jack had to voice the nagging disbelief in his head. _"Ratchet_ , though? Seriously, Mom?"

June looked back at them as she clicked her keys together with a rogue's grin. "Were you hoping I'd choose Optimus?"

"Ugh, Mom!" Jack hid his revulsion with a palm over his face as his other arm pulled the car's passenger door open. "One alien robot crush is bad enough!"

"I'm kidding, Jack," June laughed, taking her own seat next to him. "And you always say I don't have a sense of humour." Before he could rebuke, she pointed an accusing finger at his side. "Seatbelt, young man."

In typical teenager regime, Jack groaned but complied anyway. The Nevada sun hit hard against his eyes as they rolled onto the road, almost shielding the very conspicuous ambulance still parked outside. 

"So...where is Ratchet, anyway?" Jack asked after the sun finally left him alone. "I mean, I know he's outside, but where is _he_ actually-" He stopped himself as a thought crept in, eyebrows knotting together as he considered it. "He's not hiding under the stairs, is he?"

June feigned casualness by keeping her focus on driving. "No, no, he's... he's, uh..."

Jack knew she was searching for excuses, with much less practice at it than him. "Mom."

The warning tone convinced June that with all that came out that morning, one other shock wouldn't do much harm. "He's... in a human hologram. Hiding in my room," she confessed.

The shock did do Jack some good, in giving him time before even more disgust set in. "Well, Mom, thanks for those mental images to haunt me during class. At least I can blame you if I fail biology."

**Author's Note:**

> What June doesn't know is that the datapad is full of old Playmech articles disguised as medical reports.


End file.
